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Sage's Mask
Tango
Faerie Fire
Circlet
Iron Branch
Boots of Speed
Aghanim's Scepter
Medallion of Courage
Vladmir's Offering
Rod of Atos
Glimmer Cape
Blink Dagger
Force Staff
Orchid Malevolence
Shiva's Guard
Solar Crest
Assault Cuirass
Arcane Boots
Boots of Travel
Power Treads
Phase Boots
Tranquil Boots
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2 | 8 | 9 | 10 |  |
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1 | 4 | 5 | 7 |  |
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3 | 12 | 13 | 14 |  |
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6 | 11 | 16 |  |
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15 | 17 | 18 |
Hello again, folks. I'm Chaosmaster767, otherwise known as The Captain (by myself mostly), and this is my second guide in the "How to properly play" series. For those of you who may not know, Visage is actually a very good third slot. Very similar to the way that some mids can just remove one character from the game, Visage just runs into the fight, targets one person, and sends his children flying into their face. While many other mids rely on abilities and nonesense such as "skill" to secure victory, Visage can even sit in base and just kill the enemy team with his little babies. (WARNING: NOT RECOMMENDED, PEOPLE WILL MAKE YOU AWARE OF YOUR MOTHER COMMITTING ADULTERY) Visage mid plays slightly similar to how support Visage works, but withought the feeling of babysitting a braindead Anti-mage. You get to face off in the solo lane, and get the feeling of what it is like to be the team captain. Even in pubs, everyone's gonna listen to you, because you're mid and superior to them. Now lay back, relax, sit back up, and then get ready to read some more foolish ramblings. Here is my guide on how to PROPERLY play 
Visage mid lane.
Similar to my first build, "How to properly play dazzle safe lane carry," this is a work in progress, and as of 1/20/16, this build is not yet compleat.
By now, many people will have already left this guide. I know, it's only the second chapter, but as my friend Dylan said while reading my first guide, "This is f**cking cancerous." But I just turned to him, and told him what my mother always used to say when I was having a rough time. She used to say, uh, "You're adopted." Alright, but enough about Sciences. Visage, or as I like to call him, Ghost Bird, is really under rated in the current 0-3k rankings. Like wards, you never really see anyone use them, and normally they just sit there, waiting for someone to pick them up and use them horribly, horribly wrong. So, as someone who knows more about how to really play Dota, you're the one who must carry the team on your back, and what better role to play then the solo lane when you need to win the game for your horrible team? You don't really rely on anyone, and if they gank, then that's all the better. And as a third slot, you still help out your teammates in the mid lane, travel with them in smoke ganks, and split push while your teammates are farming in other parts of the map. Plus, with your slow and tiny flying babies, you hit like a truck to one person, which can be the carry, a support, or just the opponent third slot, so your team with have an easier fight. Plus with your little children pushing other lanes, you can make it so that the enemy team has no choice but to defend that lane, and leave you and your team to take an easy gank/tower/objectives.
So, some TL;DR time.
Pros:
[*] Ranged, good for some of the tankier mids
[*] Split pushes like a mo-fo
[*] Lots of burst potential
[*] Good team fight assistance
[*] Good chase with his Grave Chill
Cons:
[*] Not known as a mid, will get some hate
[*] No one believes he is a mid, people will yell
[*] Peruvians and Russians really, really hate off-meta builds
[*] Learn from your teammates about your brain's inadequacies
So mute those teammates, and get ready to play some MidLane Visage!
Entirely underrated. This is a Speed STEAL, and an attack-speed STEAL. And it's PERCENTAGE BASED. That means that you can just leave this ability at level one for a while, and while opponent carries build more attack speed, you get it. I mean, early game it's kinda nice, since you can stop people from ganking you, are use it to gank others, but since most characters don't really have a great amount of attack or movement speed by twenty mins, you won't really rely on this, but its always nice to have that one point in it, just in case. Later game, it becomes ridiculous, since you steal 64% of the enemy attack speed for SIX SECONDS. Unless the enemy carry builds BKB, you're gonna make them more useless than a 
Keeper of the Light. All the while, your babies and/or teammates will be whaling on the enemy.
I'm still not really sure about this ability. Like, I know its apparently amazing, and can just destroy enemies during a teamfight, but I've always been a bit confused as to 'why' it does. I mean, you definitely want to max this ability out first, since the cooldown is only 4 seconds, and can do up to 380 damage at max charges. These charges are gained whenever an enemy takes damage that adds to a threshold of 110 damage. On a four second cooldown, this ability can be really powerful, since during most teamfights, people are taking massive amounts of damage, so you'll have max stacks for most of the time.
gatekeeper's cloak This is a really good passive, and like most of the abilities on this hero, no one knows what the **** it does. Well, it's a stacking armor and magic resist. You have up to four stacks, and each stack gives 1/2/3/4 armor and 3%/6%/12%/16% magic resist. The downside of this ability is that every time you take damage from an enemy hero, you lose one stack, and the stacks take time to regenerate, 12/10/8/4 seconds. So, this ability is pretty good for trading blows with the enemy lanes. This means that many heroes that have high-burst do less damage the first blow, but eventually deal normal damage, so be careful of fast attacking heroes.
This is the most fun ability you have. Visage becomes a secondary unit once he gets his ult, because you'll be focusing on macroing your little birds to bring death unto thy opponents. With the slow from your chilling ability, and the minus armor from Medallion of Courage, they'll be so slow and have no armor, so your Familiars will just shred your opponent's health bars. Add in ***ult cuirass, and the opponent will have no armor to protect from those little demons. (Goes perfectly with a good ol' Dazzle safe-lane carry might I add.)
Facing Visage in a game of DotA 2:
There are not really many items that you want to use, since there is only really one important item; Aghs. But since this is a guide, I will go through all available items.
This is a nice item in lane, as it's like a mango for damage and health. Using this in lane is really nice, because most of the mids will use an ability and then leave you to die, so the extra quick heal will help a lot in the early game. Also, laneing is a bit easier with the damage from the fire. With the fact that it only costs 75G, the starting damage is worth it.
What's better than two things? THREE THINGS. Well, in the case of Visage's birds at least. I mean, it's not a very creative upgrade, but its still really good. Unlike Warlock's 
Chaotic Offering, adding another bird doesn't make the others worse, so it's just better. A 50% increase in damage, in fact. And since the birds are the best part of Visage, it can only make you better.
ATOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOS. This item was even fun before the buffed it. Now that it had minus evasion, it's a counter to most carries that build butterfly, or others that have high evasion through passives(********ed 
Phantom Assassin and 
Brewmaster). Adding this item after you use Grave Chill makes the enemy pretty much rooted. But remember, Grave Chill steals the CURRENT movement speed the enemy has, so make sure to use it before you use any attack/movement slows. While slows wouldn't be great normally, you get this item after Aghs, so your three birdies will attack the enemy while you keep the hero standing still. Cost effective as well, as it gives you a good amount of health and INT.
This is another really good item for Visage, since the only downside of the birds is that they have only a few hard hitting attacks, and their extremely fast attack speed makes the birds go through those charges fast. With these problems in mind, a good way to make them deal more PHYSICAL DAMAGE is to remove the armor of the enemy. With medallion, you'll be able to run up to someone, remove seven armor, and just let your kids whale on the enemy. This item goes well with Rod of Atos, and you can build either first, depending on the game.
This item is kind of optional. While the invisibility and magic resist from the item is really nice, if you are doing very well in the game, then it would be more worth it to buy an Assault Cuirass. This is more of a third to fourth slot item, so if you did poorly in lane, or if you have harder carries on your team, then this item would be a good purchase.
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